Allison CP - 5

As many of you know, I took one of my conversation partners home with me for the weekend along with her room mate. It had been planned as a random thing, but ended up being a quite helpful way to keep my mind off of other things. I woke up that Friday morning, planning on going over to Joyce's house for 9:30 so that way we could be on the road by 10. However when I checked my phone, I found out two huge pieces of information. First, I got a job offer in Beijing for this coming year! Second, my good friend and Chinese tutor, William "Cullen" Klein, who was studying abroad in Tianjin passed away due to a tragic accident. Needless to say, I was in no position to get ready for a 5hr road trip in the time I had allotted upon my waking up. Joyce offered to cancel and said she'd understand completely if I wanted to, but sticking around Tallahassee to mope didn't seem like the best idea. When I went to pick up Joyce and Fay (her roomie), I went upstairs to their apartment for like 15 min only to come back to discover that my car had been towed (at 11am. Just my luck, right?) Thankfully, Joyce had a friend who lived in the apartment complex next door so he was able to give us a ride to the tow place, which was literally in the middle of freaking nowhere like 25 min away from FSU. Having gotten on the road an hour and a half later than planned, we had to alter the weekend agenda a little bit. We had planned on going to the FL Aquarium in Tampa that day but we would have only been able to be there for an hour so we decided to just go on Sunday on the way back. On the way down, we stopped in Gainesville for some boba tea at Lollicup (aka best place ever). Joyce was super excited about this because apparently Tallahassee has no good boba tea places. After this, we continued on to my hometown of Punta Gorda. We stopped by my house to drop off our things and for the girls to meet my mom. Joyce and Fay were so sweet. They surprised my mom with some gifts from Taiwan, explaining that it was a thank you for welcoming them into our home for the weekend. Joyce gave her a small wooden plaque with some Mandarin poem on it, and Fay gave her a pin in the shape of Taiwan. Joyce really won my mom over though when she said that our house was the cleanest home that she had ever visited in America. Needless to say, my mom really enjoyed their company! After chatting for a bit, we went to dinner at the one and only touristy spot that exists in Punta Gorda. It's called Fisherman's Village and it is along the Peace River which connects to the Gulf of Mexico. That is where the above photo was taken. We got dinner at a restaurant there and headed home for the night since we were tired from the trip.

On Saturday, we went to Siesta Key beach in Sarasota. It was a great day. Fay and Joyce kept tank tops and shorts on because in the Asian culture it is not good to be tan. Generally, it has the association of being a field worker. Plus, apparently when they tan it takes forever to go away. Joyce kept covering herself with the towel. It was pretty cute. They took turns burying each other's and my feet in the sand and made little figures out of the sand structures (One of my feet became an Egyptian sphinx.) That night we had another dinner along the gulf but this time we met up with one of my friends who was in town from Vegas. After dinner, we went mini-golfing with my friend and her sisters. It was Joyce's first time mini golfing and she actually beat all of us!

On Sunday, we went to the FL Aquarium in Tampa. It was pretty awesome actually. We got to pet sting rays, starfish and some other sea creatures that I don't even know the same of. The location of the aquarium was right on the port of Tampa and the girls kept remarking upon a Carnival cruise ship that appeared to be setting sail that day. It had a big slide on top and looked pretty neat. This ship was parked next to an old navy ship that was apparently used during World War 2, entitled American Victory. After that, we ate at a Spanish restaurant that served primarily tapas. IT WAS DELICIOUS. This was the first time that Fay and Joyce ever heard of tapas, but they both really loved the experience. I also introduced them to the amazingness that is the mojito <3.

Throughout the weekend, I taught Joyce a plethora of words. We kept a really long list on my phone. Some of them included cannibalism, straightener, fuel gauge, and edamame. She said the most useful word of all that she learned though was "womanizer". Naturally, this convo stemmed from a Britney Spears jam session. On that note, we had lots of time in the car and we listened to music the entire time. I took this opportunity to educate Joyce (mostly because Fay knew most of the artists actually!) about various musical acts including Chris Brown, Rihanna, Billy Idol, Maroon 5, Nicki Minaj, Bon Jovi, Pitbull, Guns N Roses and more.Basically, Ted, this is your cue to give her a quiz to see if she remembers who these people are hahaha. All in all it was a very fun weekend. Despite my bittersweet news, Joyce and Fay were able to keep me busy and were very accomodating for any emotional conversations throughout the weekend.